The invention generally relates to an apparatus having an integrated receiver that receives both radio signals and GPS signals.
Radio signals refer to any signal in the AM, FM, shortwave, weatherband, or other frequency bands that is typically used to provide audio information and any signal in the VHF, UHF, L-band or other frequency bands that is typically used to provide video or television information. The radio signals are typically transmitted from broadcast towers located throughout the world. GPS signals refer to any signal related to the US global positioning system (GPS), the GLONASS system in Russia, the Galileo system in Europe, or any other satellite-based navigation system anywhere in the world typically transmitted within the L1, L2, L5, or other frequency bands.
Currently the US global positioning system (GPS) contains twenty-four satellites, which communicate signals that may be received by GPS receivers for such purposes as determining locations of the receivers. The GPS receiver is designed to acquire and process signals from one or more satellites with the goal to calculate the receiver's position. Each GPS satellite, in general, transmits two types of signals, one of which contains a pseudo-random noise code (typically called the “C/A code”) that is typically used for commercial applications and the other of which contains an encrypted code called a “P code” that is typically used for military applications.
In a typical approach to determining its position, the GPS receiver receives and process the signals to calculate the position, velocity, and time of one or more of the satellites. In general, a GPS receiver may operate either in a standalone mode, an assisted mode called “Assisted-GPS” or A-GPS, or in a combination of modes, or in some other mode. In A-GPS mode, the system uses additional sources of information to augment the position calculations including but not limited to broadcast radio signals, cellular radio signals, mapping data, or other sources of information.